At precisely fifteen minutes past midnight on June 6, 1944, Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Europe, began. At that moment, a few specially chosen men from the American and British Airborne divisions stepped out of their planes into the moonlit night over Normandy. These were the pathfinders, the men who were to light the drop zones for the paratroopers and glider borne infantry that were soon to follow. Through the hours before dawn, as paratroopers fought in the hedgerows of Normandy, the greatest armada the world had ever known began to assemble off those beaches-almost five thousand ships carrying more than two hundred thousand soldiers. And through that fateful day, these men fought to regain a foothold on a terrorized and devastated continent.